Sheet material, such as pressure sensitive material, is conveniently and economically produced in rolls which are often much longer than the width of pressure sensitive material usually required for use. Then, slices of desired thickness are cut from the material roll, with each providing a roll of pressure sensitive tape having a required width. This procedure minimises the range of material roll lengths that need to be produced to satisfy customer requirements, since the material roll can be cut into slices of desired width upon demand.
A range of machines have been developed for cutting these rolls of material, and in general they can provide satisfactory slices. However, it has been found that, in general, those machines are quite complex in construction and operation. Because of this they can be expensive to purchase and also to maintain.
Moreover, at least some of these machines are not fully automated in their cutting operation, so that a human operator is required to control and monitor the machine during that operation. This can be tedious for the human operator and lead to errors or inaccuracies in cutting material rolls or logs into slices. In addition, it may well add to machine operating costs.